Peter d'Errico: Native students raise questions about colonization

Damian Webster and Emmy Scott ask important questions in their recent article, "A Defense of Traditionalism": "What is a successful Native person?" "Whose standard are we attempting to meet?" "Do we expect our children to know our creation stories, speeches, or ceremonial songs in the same manner we expect them to know their times tables, U.S. history dates, or the U.S. Constitution?"

They raise these questions in the context of the Navajo language requirement that precluded Chris Deschene from running for the office of Navajo Nation President. Webster and Scott don't criticize Deschene for speaking more English than Navajo, nor do they make an issue of the fact that another candidate for the presidency, Joe Shirley, Jr., professes a mixture of Christianity and Navajo beliefs.

Their defense of traditional values focuses a philosophical call to action, bigger and broader than a specific political campaign. As they point out, defense of traditional values runs head on into mass culture, commercialism, and pressures toward uniformity. The capitalist system of economics makes everything—lands and people—into commodities to buy and sell.

The phrase "free market" hides the fact that we cannot participate in the market economy unless we have money; and the only way to get money (if you aren't born into it) involves finding something to sell. We learn to sell ourselves. We learn to fit into the "needs of the market."